Maya Scene

Estimated reading: 4 minutes

Supported software version: 2024_1 using MtoA-5.3

Maya Scene export from Autodesk Flow Studio opens up a world of possibilities by seamlessly integrating all VFX elements from Autodesk Flow Studio with Maya‘s robust toolset. Here’s what you can do:

Utilize Maya’s comprehensive toolkit: Easily modify and enhance your Autodesk Flow Studio content using the wide array of tools available in Maya, allowing for detailed adjustments and refinements.
Blend diverse content seamlessly: Merge your Autodesk Flow Studio assets effortlessly with any additional elements brought into Maya, expanding creative possibilities.
Streamlined character management while preserving animation: Effortlessly handle character references within Maya or USD formats while ensuring the preservation of original animations. Update, replace, or enhance characters seamlessly, maintaining animation integrity throughout your workflow, aligned perfectly with standard animation pipelines.
Optimized characters for efficiency: Characters packaged within the Maya scene undergo preprocessing and simplification, resulting in a lighter scene. Character rigs and shaders are streamlined, reducing complexity, while shaders are automatically converted to Standard Surface upon import. Swap these optimized characters in the final Maya Scene with high LODLevel of Detail versions seamlessly.
Streamlined camera sequencing: Utilize the Camera Sequencer pre-configured with all your project shots, simplifying the management of complex sequences and shot arrangements.
Pre-arranged render layers: The Maya Scene is equipped with preset render setup layers that distinctly separate imported characters and the background plate. This pre-established organization simplifies your workflow by providing readily accessible and structured render layers.

Export Scene files do not come with character textures. If you are using Autodesk Flow Studio Featured characters please visit the Download Textures for WS Featured Character section of the documentation.

How to open the Maya Scene

Setting a project in Maya organizes files for efficient access and collaboration, streamlining workflows and ensuring consistent organization when opening scenes.

Go to File > Set Project..., choose or create a folder for your project, set project details, and confirm. Maya will now organize files and references within this project for efficient access.

Click File > Open Scene…, and choose your scene file. Maya will load the scene for you to start working.

Scene Content

world
- Contains the environment maps and lighting grouped per shot.
- Each shot will have the visibility animated to fit the length of each shot.
CHAR
- Contains one referenced character per actor.
- Each actor will have the visibility animated to fit the length of each shot.
CAMERA
- Contains referenced cameras from all shots.

Character References and Proxies

In the WD Maya Scene, all characters come as references, one per actor. If an actor gets reused in many shots, it is the same character. Different actors will have different references even if they use the same asset.

The animation is applied on top of the reference as native Maya curves and connected as reference edits. This allows you to change the reference or have multiple proxies on it while keeping the animation functional.

You can either replace or add a proxy reference in the Maya Reference editor.

Camera Sequencer

The WS Maya scene comes with the Maya Camera Sequencer already configured, where you have each shot defined by name, with the corresponding camera linked and the in-and-out properly set.

This will make switching cameras per shot easier (especially when adding the clean plates to the camera, see tool below) when scrubbing the timeline.

This is also useful in pipeline integration to query the cut information with the cmds.shot command.

Camera Plate Add-On

To keep the size of the Maya project small, we are not delivering clean plates with the Maya project.
For this reason, we provide a tool for loading the plates in each corresponding camera.

Locate the add-on in the WonderDynamics tool drawer. Look for the Maya Image Plane icon.

About the tool:

The tool is made to work with clean plate files downloaded from Autodesk Flow Studio.
Read more about Clean Plate export element.

The tool will rename and move the files to the project or scene folder and make all the necessary connections for the plates to work.

Click on the tool button and follow the instructions.